ActiveWin.com has just posted their 45-page, 40-screenshot review of Microsoft Windows 8. The review covers many different aspects of the OS including performance, security, application compatibility, and more. "Is Windows 8 a hit or miss? It's a hit, it is clearly Microsoft's most bold development in years, it probably beats out the transition from Program Manager (Windows 3X) to Windows 95, the move from Windows 9x to the NT Kernel. The Windows 8 platform represents so many things: truly touch centric, support for modern processor architectures, fast and fluid as Microsoft puts it and also represents where the majority of the world is heading when it comes to computing, entirely mobile."

I've already clarified this part about a half hour before you responded. But obviously that didn't stop you from dismissing out of hand what I said. Quite dishonest, don't you think?

Not on desktops, which is what I was talking about (you know, the title of my post said "Touch on a desktop machine..."). But hey, when you're strawmanning my position, why stop now?

That's such a dumb artificial restriction. The point in my original comments calling you a minority was to highlight the fact that when contrasted against the entirety of the Windows ecosystem, you're in the minority.

I don't very much care that you can twist numbers and male your setup more common. It isn't the point I'm making at all.

I wasn't touching it at all, since when using the keyboard and mouse I'm sitting much further away from the machine. Even so points 3, 4 and 5 still stand - Metro simply doesn't scale well to large machines (not to mention the fact that it utterly fails at multi-monitoring).

Which makes sense. AIOs aren't primarily designed for touch. This would ring true using any touch OS. The ergonomics are not there.

Touch is instead supposed to augment, much like now the mouse augments the keyboard. Same with Pen. Its a choice.

My original post was as a result of me doing a deliberate touch-only test to see if it is usable. My conclusion is that it is not. I had to put the keyboard and mouse aside, since they were in the way, so using it as an augmentation is nonsense. It's either-or. Any combination felt awkward and I had to continually adjust my seating position and move the keyboard/mouse around on the table (to have a place where to rest my elbows).

The model you said you tested has an adjustable stand. You can tilt it closer to you. That's the entire point. Touch is optional. Using it as the primary method of input is absurd.

However, its not the fault of the OS. Its just not a form factor suited for that kind of thing.

The same goes for the touch screen laptops. Its there in addition to a touchpad. Not to replace it. That's the greatest miss I think people have when it comes to Windows 8. Touch is an option. So is Pen. So is Mouse. So is Keyboard. Its an option.

That is all nice and sweet, but what about the desktop machine users (such, oh I don't know, about 95% of the enterprise?) who do have large screens? Microsoft clearly intends this interface to be *the* method to interact with their new OS. Are they willing to relegate an entire extremely important market segment over to the "legacy" column?

No. They can use a mouse and keyboard. They still exist. Shocking. I know.

In fact, if they'd like, they purchase gesture enabled mice and trackpads.

It's nice that Windows 8 works well in some areas - woohoo for them. But that doesn't solve the problem of it sucking in some other scenarios. Users don't average their experience over all market segments.

I think the issue is overblown, much like the Vista DRM stuff was overblown. At the time OSNews ran like 10 articles on it a say. FSF claimed it'd cause global flooding, etc. Things tend to get exaggerated.

Excuse me? This is one of the flagship desktop machines from Dell. The mere fact that it's "all-in-one" means jack shit - users don't care if the components of the computer are crammed up behind the screen or sit in a separate box on the floor. The important bit is the interface - the touch screen. But perhaps you're one of those mobile hipsters who thinks desktop machines are dead.

AIOs are in and of themselves a niche form factor. TOUCH AIOs are even more niche.

More people will buy Dell Laptops than will buy this. Fact.

However, its all besides the point. As I stated above, the way you were using the machine was intentional handicapping by your own admission.

In related news, my 200inch monitor with Windows 8 sucks because I had to climb a ladder to swipe down from the top.

That you can't see which model I meant about shows me the level of your reading comprehension. I wrote which model I tried in my first response to you.

Well genius, Dells XPS One lineup is also a Windows 7 line up. I'm sorry I didn't assume you went to a damn Consumer Electronics Show. Because that's so common.

IIRC it was the "Games" tile on the home screen, which should be part of the Store app, but it might have been the "Messaging" app. I didn't install anything 3rd party for sure (since the machine wasn't linked to a Live account).

I can only comment on my experience, I haven't checked any documentation. IE shows the address bar at the bottom and the tabs at the top. Swipe in from the top showed both, swipe in from the bottom did nothing.

Just tried both those apps on my Windows tablet, which I'm writing this response on, and nope, a bottom swipe brings down the top app bar too.

I really don't know what was going on with your experience, but that's not how the AppBar works or ever worked in the SDK.